This client also works on Windows 8, however you will need to set steam.exe to run in Windows 7 compatibility mode, or make a shortcut to steam.exe and append " -no-cef-sandbox" without quotes to the target box. The former of which is preferred as -no-cef-sandbox reduces the security of the client, and compatibility mode still works if you set the client to run on startup, or you restart the client where the shortcut is not involved.

If the client gives you connection issues, a potential fix may be to make a shortcut to steam.exe and append " -TCP" without quotes to the target box. This is a very rare issue and it is unknown what causes it.

Also on some old versions of Windows 7, TLS 1.2 may not be enabled by default which may cause connection issues with the client. To fix this, go to Control Panel, Internet Options, Advanced, and tick the boxes for Use TLS 1.1 and Use TLS 1.2, then click OK to save the changes.

To extract the client, see the video (how to extract win 7.mp4) or follow the below guide.
You will need 7-zip or any capable file extraction utility. I recommend 7-zip since it's open source and you can extract every file into one directory at once.
Extract the Steam 2024-11-08 for Windows 7.7z file containing the client files.
Inside the extracted folder are a bunch of files with .zip.(string of letters and numbers) as the extension.
Extract all of these files. (For 7-zip, the process is to select them all, right click, 7-zip, Extract files, replace the *\ at the end of the Extract to: box with Steam and click OK. If you use Ctrl + A to select all the files instead of drag clicking to select all the files, a tickbox under the Extract to: box will be checked, in which *\ will be inside. Untick this box and append Steam to the end of the Extract to: box in this case.)
There are some duplicates within these files, so just click yes to all when you get prompted for that.
Once this is done, move the steam.cfg file into the extracted Steam folder, and you have the client. You can move the Steam folder anywhere you wish, you could even run it straight out of the folder you just extracted to if you wish.

If you want to make a "proper" Steam install, use the Steam installer (https://web.archive.org/web/20231231104453/https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/client/installer/SteamSetup.exe), don't run Steam after installing, and move the extracted Steam client to the Steam install folder.

The client is packaged in this format because it is the files straight from Valve. You can take any file, append it to this url https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/client/ and you'll download the file from directly from Valve. (Well, as of 2025/05/15, eventually Valve will delete the files from their server.) The string of numbers and letters after the .zip extension is the SHA-1 hash, which you can double check as well. On top of that, in the misc file is the package folder from a client installed using this build, which includes the manifest with SHA2 hashes, and could be used to install the client with steam.exe directly. However this is a less reliable method of installing than the more simple zip file extraction. The only file required for the client that isn't direct from Valve is the steam.cfg which is just a couple configurations to disable updates.

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